


Impostors at Blandings Castle

by mairelon



Category: Blandings Castle - P. G. Wodehouse, Derkholm Series - Diana Wynne Jones, JONES Diana Wynne - Works
Genre: 1920s AU, Blandings Castle AU, F/M, comedy of manners AU, drawing room comedy AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:14:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28127472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mairelon/pseuds/mairelon
Summary: A Blandings Castle AU where Shona must infiltrate Blandings to see her true love Geoffrey, who has been imprisoned at the castle by his mother and stepfather.  Blade still doesn't know how he got dragged along on this mission but his reluctance fades when he meets Claudia, a fellow guest at Blandings Castle.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Impostors at Blandings Castle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nerdzeword](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdzeword/gifts).



> Dramatis Personae
> 
> Querida – chatelaine of Blandings Castle, sister of the Earl of Blandings  
> Luther – Duke of Luteria  
> Irida – Duchess of Luteria  
> Isodel – 18 year old daughter of Luther and Irida  
> Titus – 20 year old university student, Marquess of Condita  
> Claudia – 18 year old heiress, sister to Titus  
> Shona – 23 year old nightclub singer. Disguised as her friend Olivia, who is married to Nicholas Romney  
> Blade – 20 year old university student. Disguised as Nicholas Romney, art historian  
> Geoffrey – 23 year old assistant secretary in his stepfather’s travel agency firm

Blandings Castle, one of England’s largest stately homes, was written up in all the guidebooks as one of the most picturesque Tudor buildings ever built. However, Blade’s first view of Blandings Castle filled him with nervous dread at his upcoming ordeal. All through the train ride from London, he had contemplated jumping out of the train at one of the stations and fleeing to some place where Shona would never find him. Shona might have sensed his thoughts because she took care to sit between Blade and the door.

But it was too late to escape now. The chauffeur who had picked them up from the train station at Market Blandings pulled up the car at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the front door and opened the car door for them. Shona practically pushed Blade out the car and up the stairs. The front door was answered by a stout butler.

The butler showed Blade and Shona into the drawing room. “Mr and Mrs Romney,” announced the butler and withdrew.

Sitting on a sofa was a small, elderly, wrinkled lady. “Good afternoon. I am Lady Querida. You look very young for your position, Mr Romney.”

Blade gulped. “I, um, thank you?”

Shona cut across Blade’s stammering. “My husband will be thankful for his youthful appearance when he reaches middle age.”

“Indeed,” said Lady Querida. “My brother, the Earl, was called to London on business yesterday. After tea, I will show you the picture gallery. You may start your duties tomorrow morning.”

The butler showed Blade and Shona to their rooms, where their bags had been brought up from the car. To Blade’s relief, they had been giving adjoining bedchambers. It was bad enough pretending to be married to Shona without having to listen to her snores also.

After they had freshened up, Blade and Shona returned to the drawing room. A middle-aged couple and a beautiful girl had joined Lady Querida for tea.

Lady Querida introduced them to the Duke and Duchess of Luteria and their daughter, Lady Isodel. The duke and his family were staying at Blandings for a few days on their way to visiting their eldest son at Oxford.

Blade had eaten three cucumber sandwiches and was chatting with Lady Isodel when a tall young man moped into the room. Blade could see how his dejected face lit up when he saw Shona. The young man opened his mouth to say something (Shona’s name, Blade feared) when Shona spilled her cup of tea over the Duke of Luteria. The duke’s bellow of pain drowned out any words the young man managed to utter.

Shona fluttered around the duke apologizing. “I’m so sorry, your grace. I don’t know how I could be so clumsy.”

After the duke left to change, Lady Querida made the introductions. “Geoffrey, this is Mr. Nicholas Romney and his wife Mrs. Olivia Romney. Mr. Romney is an art historian and has been hired to catalogue the castle’s art collections. This is my godson, Geoffrey.”

Geoffrey started visibly at hearing of Blade and Shona’s relationship before recovering his manners and shaking their hands. He gripped Blade’s hand extra hard and stared furiously at him.

After tea, Lady Querida led them to the picture gallery for a quick tour. Blade stared with dismay at the number of paintings that he was expected to catalogue (with more hanging in the library, great hall, dining room and sundry other rooms). Lady Querida reeled off a list of names (Fragonard, Reynolds, Boucher, Kauffman) as Blade tried to memorize the artists’ names and the corresponding paintings. 

“We had an Angelica Kauffman once,” said the Duke of Luteria as they admired a portrait of the second Earl of Blandings and his family. “Had to sell it about seven years ago to help pay for the new roof,” he added gloomily.

In  the back of the group, Shona and Geoffrey were whispering to each other.  Blade hoped Shona was explaining everything because  a jealous  Geoffrey was not someone he wanted to bump into in a dark corridor.

“And this one is either a genuine Artemisia Gentileschi or a skillful reproduction. We will rely on you to inform us which one it is,” said Lady Querida.

B lade gulped and peered at the painting of a woman holding a severed head. “ Ah, yes,” said Blade. “ I’ll need to look more closely at the brush strokes to determine whether it is genuine.”

~~~

A fter breakfast the next day,  Blade went to the picture gallery with his notebook to pretend to catalogue the art collection.  Shona disappeared into the rose gardens with Geoffrey.

Two more guests arrived at Blandings in the afternoon. Blade met them during tea. He immediately recognized one of them as his old school mate Titus, Marquess of Condita. Blade had been eating dinner in the refectory with Titus just a week ago during the last day of term. Titus’s eyebrows rose when Lady Querida introduced him as Nicholas Romney but he didn’t say anything to give Blade away. The other guest was Lady Claudia, Titus’s younger sister. Blade recalled that Titus had mentioned a sister but he had never met her before. Shona and Geoffrey didn’t show up at all for tea.

After tea, Blade and Lady Claudia strolled around the lake.

“Why are you visiting Blandings?” asked Blade.

“It’s the summer holidays,” explained Claudia. “Our parents died six years ago. Our Uncle Antoninus is our guardian but he’s too busy with his duties as a Member of Parliament to look after us. So he sends Titus and me to stay with relatives or family friends during all our school holidays. One of Lady Querida’s sisters is good friends with my uncle, so she invited us to stay here this summer.”

Blade brightened up at this news. He and Shona were supposed to leave Blandings next week, but he wondered if he could extend his art cataloguing by an extra week.

The conversation moved onto their favorite books and Blade’s classes at Oxford as they skipped stones across the lake.

“I want to go to Oxford in the fall,” said Claudia eagerly. “But my Uncle Antoninus says that too much education is unhealthy for ladies and he refuses to hear about my going to university.”

“That’s sheer Victorian balderdash,” said Blade. “Your uncle needs to adapt to the modern age.”

Claudia sighed. “Uncle Antoninus is my guardian until I’m twenty-one. And since he controls my inheritance, I can’t do anything without his permission.” Claudia’s next stone skipped four times before sinking.

“Can your brother help you?”

“Titus is in the same boat as me. Uncle Antoninus controls his inheritance until he turns twenty-one, which won’t be until next year.”

~~~

Titus cornered Blade by the drinks cabinet in the drawing room before dinner.

“What ho, old bean,” said Titus. “Why are you going around by a false name?”

“Shh!” said Blade. He shot a swift glance at Lady Querida across the room. She was probably too far away to overhear them, but Blade had already noticed she had ears like a hawk. “I’ll explain everything later when no one is around.”

At that point, Claudia and Isodel entered the drawing room. Titus lost all interest in talking to Blade and gravitated to Isodel’s side.

Claudia was looking very pretty in a beaded dress with a hip sash. Objectively, Blade knew that Isodel was far more beautiful than Claudia, but it was Claudia that made him as if he had been hit over the head with a blunt object. Blade followed Titus over to the girls but he arrived just as Lady Querida was introducing Geoffrey and Shona to Claudia and Titus.

“And this is Mrs. Romney,” said Lady Querida.

“Mrs. Romney? Any relation to this fellow over here?” asked Titus as he shook Shona’s hand.

“His wife, of course,” said Lady Querida.

“Oh, of course, wife,” said Titus looking between Shona and Blade.

Beside Titus, Claudia stood as if turned to stone. She didn’t speak to Blade for the rest of the evening.

During dinner, Claudia was seated beside the Duke of Luteria and Geoffrey. She listened to the Duke of Luteria discourse on the money troubles his estate was facing and discussed with Geoffrey the latest jazz music coming over from America. Meanwhile, Blade was seated beside the Duchess of Luteria and Shona, who spent most of the meal sending longing glances at Geoffrey. Blade tried to catch Claudia’s eye several times during dinner but she never looked in his direction.

~~~

After dinner, Titus and Isodel played a game of chess in the library. The conversation during the game turned to their families. Titus only had the one sister while Isodel had an older brother, two younger brothers, and two younger sisters.

“Which college is your brother Lukin at?” asked Titus. “I don’t think I ever met him.”

Isodel considered the chessboard before moving a bishop. “Can you keep a secret?” she asked.

“Yes, of course.”

“Lukin isn’t actually at Oxford. He’s in London at the Imperial College.”

“But I thought that you and your parents were on the way to Oxford to visit Lukin.”

“We are,” said Isodel. “Lukin wants to be an engineer and Imperial has one of the best engineering programs in the country. However, Father went to Oxford, and every single Duke of Luteria has always attended Oxford. Lukin and Father had several rows about this. In the end, Lukin capitulated and agreed to attend Oxford. But Lukin secretly enrolled in Imperial. So Father thinks Lukin has been at Oxford this whole year but he’s really been in London. Lukin has a part-time job in London which is why he couldn’t come home for the summer holidays but he told Father that his job is in Oxford.”

“How long can Lukin keep up this deception?”

“He’s managed it for almost a year. Mother knows and so does the rest of my siblings. When Father came up with the idea of this visit, we sent a telegram to Lukin warning him to get to Oxford by Friday to meet us there.”

“Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.”

The door opened, and the Duke of Luteria entered the library. Isodel and Titus jumped. Somehow, during their conversation, they had leaned closer and closer over the chess board until only a couple of handbreadth separated them.

The Duke glared at Titus. “What are you doing?”

“We were just playing chess,” said Isodel.

The Duke came over and sat down at the table. “Go on. I’ll watch your game.”

Titus and Isodel exchanged an uneasy glance. The Duke _couldn’t_ have overheard their conversation because the library doors were shut, but they very well couldn’t ask him to confirm that.

~~~

Blade retreated to the art gallery after breakfast the next day to “catalogue” the Blandings art collection. During a harrowing breakfast where the Duke had spent most of the meal glaring at Titus, the Duchess and Isodel had been jumpy and nervous, and Claudia had stared right past Blade as if he wasn’t there, Blade was glad of a chance to avoid the rest of the guests.

Titus wandered into the art gallery a couple of hours later. “There you are,” he said. “Any chance of that explanation you promised me last night?”

“It’s all my sister Shona’s fault,” said Blade. “I’ve told you about my sister Shona before, right?”

“I think so. She’s the bossy one? The one who sings in a nightclub?”

“Right. Shona has been singing in a nightclub for the last couple of years. About six months ago, Geoffrey came into the club with a party of his friends and he fell in love with Shona (for some strange reason. Personally, I don’t know why he hasn’t run screaming for the horizon by now.) So he introduced Shona to his family and announced that they are getting married. To say that Geoffrey’s family was upset was putting it mildly. His mother wept and moaned about the disgrace of marrying a nightclub singer. And his stepfather threatened to cut him off without a shilling. And also to dismiss him from his job since Geoffrey works for his stepfather’s firm. In the end, Geoffrey’s mother packed him off here to Blandings so that he can come to his senses. Lady Querida is an old friend of Geoffrey’s mother so she makes sure that no letter or telegram can reach Geoffrey except for ones from his mother. It took Geoffrey months before he was able to secretly mail a letter to Shona about his whereabouts. (Geoffrey said that Blandings Castle is more secure than the Bastile). Around the time Shona received the letter, her friend Olivia’s husband had just been hired to catalogue the art collection here at Blandings. Olivia talked her husband into arriving next week instead of this week as planned so that Shona and I could take their place. He’s going to pretend that he mixed up the dates.”

“But how did you get involved?” asked Titus.

“Shona twisted my arm into helping her. She tried to talk my brother Kit into it first but Kit flat out refused. They had a couple of rows about it before Shona gave up and moved onto me from the moment I got home from university. I tried to follow Kit’s example but somehow I found myself packed and on the train to Blandings before I knew it. Our parents were no help at all. They refused to take sides in the matter.”

“How long will you be here?”

“Just a few more days,” said Blade. “We need to leave before the real Nicholas and Olivia arrive. Can I ask you a favor, old bean? Can you explain all this to Claudia?”

Titus gave him a shred look. “I think it’ll be better if you explain it to her rather than me.”

~~~

After lunch, Claudia, Isodel and Titus started a game of croquet on the front lawn. Blade waited in the art gallery until Lady Querida left in the car with the duke and duchess to do some shopping in Market Blandings before he joined the others on the front lawn. Claudia had stopped ignoring Blade but the free and easy conversation of the previous afternoon was missing.

After the game, Titus suggested a walk down to the village of Blandings Parva. He and Isodel lagged behind leaving Blade and Claudia far ahead.

Blade took a deep breath and blurted out the explanation about Shona, Geoffrey, Olivia, Nicholas, and him without pausing for breath. “And actually my real name is Blade Derkholm,” he concluded.

Claudia said, “I know. Your sister explained everything to me this morning.”

Blade had thought Shona was too absorbed in Geoffrey to notice anything else going on around her. “Everything? So you’re not mad about the imposture?”

“No,” said Claudia.

“Good.” Blade and Claudia smiled at each other shyly.


End file.
